I was involved in a conversation this morning and there was a comment on the thread that I thought was very appropriate; marketplaces are like drugs. I thought that was a really good comment because if you ever talk to someone who is making money on eBay or Amazon and they really haven’t had many issues or setbacks, it’s like you’re talking to a crackhead.

I remember when I was in this Facebook group, I shared my negative experiences with eBay and Amazon and there was a great deal of doubt and trepidation. People thought I was lying. Here it is three years later and many of the people who doubted my testimony experienced similar challenges. I’ve noticed from the tone of that group that more and more people are diversifying and reducing their eBay dependency.

If 51% of your revenue is coming from eBay, you’re eBay top heavy. What are you going to do if eBay gets rid of you? What are you going to do if Amazon gets rid of you? Sure, you can get back on under a different company name, but you’ll always be looking over your shoulder worried they will find you out.

People believe eBay and Amazon only get rid of you if you do something wrong. Every year there is a new Terms of Service (TOS ) that comes out. Something you were doing was fine and then they change the terms of service and you forget a listing or two that should be changed to meet the new TOS and the next thing you know, you’re in trouble. You don’t have to do anything major to get in trouble other than not be completely on top of your data.

These bans occur because eBay and Amazon know there is nowhere else you can go unless you build your own site and generate your own traffic. Let’s look at eBay and Amazon and the traffic they get. Do you get all that traffic? No. You only get a certain amount of that traffic.

Given those facts, I want you to think about this. If you had a website and you had a thirty-dollar product, right? Say the product costs you five bucks to make. Say you’re at $22.50 profit and you only get 500 sales per month. It doesn’t sound like a lot, right? That’s $185,000 per year. After costs and taxes, you should still net out at six figures or close to it. That’s a very good living.

One of the reasons these marketplaces are so powerful is because you get that social proof and immediate gratification, even without a sale. When you put up that ad on Amazon or eBay, you can hit that share button and show people you have something on the site.

When you’re dealing with these drug addictions, it’s a twelve-step process. The first step is you must recognize there is a problem. eBay is a hell of a drug. Amazon is a hell of a drug. The reason that these drugs are so powerful is that the high is so hard to replicate.

In the beginning when you use your own website, you have to go out there and plow up the soil and plant the seeds. You don’t see anything for a while. When you have crops that are growing, there is a lot of stuff going on underground. You can’t see it. You are waiting for those seeds to give you some crops. Without the immediate gratification of eBay and Amazon, it’s hard for you to understand the process because you can’t see anything happening.

Your best high is from growing your own shit, or your own business. There are so many businesses making $1million to $2 million from sites you’ve never heard of. One of the highs associated with being on eBay or Amazon is instant credibility. You get prestige by association. You don’t get that with your own website until it blows up. But, it may never blow up.

I have a friend who has a website. It’s a really simple one. That site makes her about $15K per month. She’s had it about ten years. She doesn’t really do much to it.

In the beginning your money may not be what you want it to be when you have your own website. However, if you go ahead and get something you can sell to people around the world, or over and over again, you could be retired. The big benefit of using your own websites is that you can build something that will make money forever and forever.

I’m going to give you a scenario. Get your house paid off fairly quickly. Get your cars paid off fairly quickly. Then you have $9K per month coming in. You have no mortgage and no car payments. You are living a great lifestyle. You’re not rich, but you are wealthy because you have time and you don’t have any debt. When you get to that point, you are free from the matrix and you’re not living life the way everyone else is.

For the people who stay with eBay and Amazon even though they are not making enough money to live on, social proof is worth more to them than success. Let’s look at the evidence. There are a bunch of people on Amazon and eBay who are barely breaking even and they’ve been doing that for years.

When you set up your own site, it’s like people are saying, “Who the fuck are you? So what if you have a website.” That’s what is coming your way. Say the first site doesn’t work out, then you build another one. You may need to build another one after that. You get to the point where your failures become leverage points of success.

As long as you are on these marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, you are not going to learn the things you will learn with your own website. For every hour you spend in the marketplace, you need to spend two hours on your shit. I would say three or four hours is necessary. You need to start focusing on your stuff.

You’ve got to get the client’s email address. You’ve got to get them on your email list. You have to control access to information to your customers or potential customers. You have to be in that driver’s seat to be totally successful online.

This is just some food for thought. The sooner you start working on your shit instead of their shit, the sooner that your shit will blow up. I’ve seen it too many times. I’ve seen people leave eBay and Amazon and blow the fuck up and become successful.

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